Marrow Bone Spring

Early pioneers took the big stones lying around the spring for fossil bones, and the spot picked up names such as Fossil Spring, Big Bone Spring and Marrow Bone Spring, according to the Clio history site. The same account says Comanche and Wichita people lived nearby from at least the 1700s and that much of the old village site now lies under Lake Arlington. Marrow Bone Spring was listed on the National Register in 1978 and became a Texas State Archeological Landmark in 1981. It is a good starting point for Arlington's Pioneer Trail.

What the plaque says

Marrow Bone Spring An Indian habitat in the 1700s or earlier, Marrow Bone Spring in 1843 was visited by President Sam Houston's envoys seeking peace. A trading post licensed by the Texas Republic opened in 1845 near the Spring. Hiram Blackwell of the Peters Colony pioneered here before 1848. Soldier-statesman Middleton Tate Johnson (1810-1866) posted troops nearby in the late 1840s. The first Post Office in Tarrant County opened on Oct. 31, 1851, at Johnson's Station. In 1852 Blackwell sold Johnson his rights to land surrounding the spring. The Village of Johnson's Station flourished for many years. (1979)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 9.9 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Tarrant County Courthouse — 13 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 15 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 15 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.

More markers nearby

• Middleton Tate Johnson — 0.3 mi
• First Christian Church — 1.7 mi
• First Baptist Church of Arlington — 2.2 mi
• North Side School — 2.5 mi